The archives of the articles, reviews, interviews and other ramblings written by Sarah E. Jahier (aka Fatally Yours).

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Splatter Movie (2008)

Many people don’t know all the hard work it goes into making an
independent film. Tight schedules, limited resources, limited time and,
worst of all, low budgets. There is a lot of love and passion that must
go into making an independent horror movie, because even after facing
all those challenges, you don’t know if there will even be an audience
that wants to see it! So, when I popped in Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut,
an independent movie within a movie within a movie and so on, I was
intrigued to see how much it showed of the filmmaking process…and the
story itself is pretty ingenious.

In Splatter Movie, director Amy Lee Parker (played
by real-life director Amy Lynn Best) is setting up to shoot her latest
indie horror film at Hundred Acres Manor, a vast Halloween haunt that
boasts dozens of different creepy walk-throughs. A documentary crew is
following her around to capture all the behind-the-scenes mayhem so they
can put it on the DVD’s special features. As for the film she’s
shooting, it’s about a group of filmmakers and actors going into a
supposedly haunted attraction to shoot a movie…only a killer is picking
them off one by one. In a case of life imitating art imitating life that
is exactly what happens to Parker and her crew. Someone wearing the
killer’s costume is going around actually butchering people!

Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut is an inventive
piece of indie cinema and for the most part it was a very enjoyable
ride! Writer Mike Watt and director Amy Lynn Best have been writing and
directing independent films with their Happy Cloud Pictures imprint for a
long time now, and Splatter Movie just shows they are
still on the top of their game! My main praise for the film stems from
its inventive “movie within a movie within a movie, etc.” structure. It
seemed that everything in the film echoed reality, from the actors names
that were either the same or very close to their real names to scenes
that mirrored scenes they were shooting for their film. It really makes
my head spin to think about it! Kudos to Watt for such a clever premise!

I also loved how the documentary-style look of the film made you feel
like you were right there with the cast and crew, going through all the
trials and tribulations of making a low-budget movie. The
behind-the-scenes stuff, from the makeup/special FX applications to
following the bitchy assistant director around to watching a scene being
filmed, was way fun and really gives you a better understanding of the
challenges of making a low budget film.

There were also some amazing cameos from some familiar faces within
the indie horror community. Besides Amy Lynn Best, whom many people are
familiar with, we get Tom Sullivan, playing himself, who worked on The Evil Dead
trilogy, scream queens Debbie Rochon and Elske McCain and many other
recognizable faces. Everyone is basically playing themselves, so it’s
hard to credit anyone with giving a fantastic performance, but I really
loved watching Debbie Rochon every time she came on screen! And her big
rape scene within the movie within the movie was absolutely hilarious (I
know that sounds callous, but if you watch the movie you’ll totally
understand…they totally flip your expectations upside down).

Yet, despite all the positives there were still a few drawbacks to
the film, namely, the length of it. The behind-the-scenes chatter went
on a bit too long and I would have liked to see more of the actual
killer sooner. Though the kills were nice, with the appropriate amount
of blood and gore, I felt they were too short. I found myself
fast-forwarding through the more boring scenes within the film (like the
copious lesbian scenes…one would have sufficed if it was
needed at all) to get to the REAL action. The film definitely started
dragging after about 45 minutes and the ending took way too long to wrap
up (though I did appreciate the surprise reveal of the killer!). A
little bit more cutting and editing and Splatter Movie would have been much more enjoyable to sit through.

The positives of the film outweigh the negatives, though, and overall I really found myself enjoying Splatter Movie. If you are an indie horror fan I think you will too!